


Seven Lists

by a_steady_wish



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_steady_wish/pseuds/a_steady_wish
Summary: Stages of their lives together over twenty-five years.





	Seven Lists

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble was written for @leiascully's Tumblr challenge "Lists", and originally posted on Tumblr.

She makes a list, after their first case together, of all the things she should remember to pack on future cases with him: extra toothbrush (he joked with her that he usually forgets his), extra shoes, jeans, hiking boots. Hair elastics. Lots of latex gloves; lots and lots of hand sanitizer. New pajamas (she was somewhat shocked, in Oregon, at how often they ended up at each other’s doors, or in each other’s rooms, well after bedtime. It’s against FBI policy, but she is quickly learning that he doesn’t pay much attention to rules and regulations). Extra laptop battery. First Aid kit. Aspirin. She tapes the list to her mirror, wanting to be better prepared for next time. She is surprised to realize that she’s looking forward to their next trip, and learning more about this new partner of hers. She’s already got the feeling that he’s going to change her life.

He makes a list, when she’s fighting cancer, her body seeming to get smaller every time he sees her, as if the disease is actually taking little pieces of her each night as she sleeps. He calls every cancer specialist in the state, and a few out of state too, and writes down everything they tell him on pages and pages of loose-leaf paper. He binds the paper up, hides it away in a box in his closet. He wants to leave this research to her, trust that she knows what’s best, that she can make all of her own choices, but he is scared as hell that it won’t work, and that he might lose her. As the cancer tries to take her, bit by bit, he adds more doctors, more treatments, to his list. When she tells him the sickness is gone, he goes home, unearths his findings, and burns them over his sink. He’s found her cure after all, but it isn’t on those pages.

She makes a list, after he has kissed her for the first time, of the dangers of being with him. It is concise and intelligent and definitely worth keeping in mind. Every night before bed, after they have been kissing and touching – on her couch, on his couch, in her kitchen, on his living room floor, in his car on a hilltop under the night sky – she runs her fingers over her well-thought-out reasons and knows more and more each night that they don’t matter. One night she finds herself laughing as she reads it, and she throws it away. The next day she tells him she is ready, that she wants him, and he reverently kisses every part of her body as he slowly undresses her in the soft light of his bedroom. She never thinks of that list again.

He makes a list, after she has fallen asleep in his arms in a motel in Bellefleur, of all the places he is going to take her just for fun once they finish this case. “There’s got to be more than this,” he said, and he meant it; he’s going to prove it to her. He wants to show her where he went to school at Oxford; he wants to walk the beach with her in the vineyard, and drink good wine under the stars; he wants to play tourist with her in New York City. Their relationship is new, and he doesn’t know exactly what she expects from him. So he keeps the list to himself, tucks it into his jacket pocket, curls up against her back and keeps her warm through the night. Maybe he will show it to her soon.

She makes a list when her belly is great with his child and he has been gone for months. Her hand is trembling as she writes the words: crib, change table, diaper pail, diapers, wipes, sleepers. She doesn’t know what else she will need; her mother will know. They will go shopping and buy things for the baby and she will make a beautiful nursery for this unexpected miracle of hers. She wishes she had known about the baby before he disappeared, had made this list with him. She wishes he were here now, making stupid suggestions just to see her roll her eyes, hear her huff with mock annoyance. His eyes always gleamed when he could push her buttons that way.

He makes a list, while hiding in a storage room in an old, condemned factory for two days. He has to write it with a piece of stone on the cement floor, but he needs it, he needs to remind himself, in black and white, why he is here. He writes down all the names of his loved ones, living and dead: their safety, their survival, their legacy, is what has led him on this journey. His eyes ache with the strain of reading his letters in the almost-blackened room, but he reads it many times anyway. He wonders what they are doing tonight, his partner and their child. Are they safe? Are they happy? Do they know how much he loves them? He traces the letters of her name with his fingertip, again and again, until he has worn the chalky print into the ground.

She makes a list, in their small country kitchen, of what they will need for the teenage boy who is coming for the weekend. Mulder comes in and out of the room; he is busy setting up a loft bed with a built-in desk in the guest room – they started calling it Will’s room today, and it just feels right – and hanging curtains, and laying down a new rug. They’ve already bought him a new blanket and pillows and a few books by his favorite authors for his little bookshelf. He wants to come once a month, maybe, and she wants it to work out so desperately her throat closes up when she thinks of it, thinks of her tall, smart, kind son asleep in a room under their own roof. He hasn’t slept under her roof since he was a baby; she wonders briefly if his sleepy noises will be familiar to her, after all this time, or if his face will look the same when he is dreaming. She thinks suddenly of Mulder tapping on so many of her motel room doors asking for an extra toothbrush, and she smiles fondly, scrawling toothbrush on the page. As if on cue, he comes up behind her, resting his head on her shoulder, nuzzling her neck with his warm mouth. “It’s going to be great,” he whispers against her trapezius muscle, and she nods, squeezing his forearms gently. He reaches around her for the pen, adds baseball glove to the list, and saunters away, whistling.


End file.
